t he entirely loses the
present pangs of conscience, and the whole profit and salutary
effect of confession. When he is absolved, therefore, he
rejoices not so much because he is absolved, as because he has
freed himself once for all from the wretched worry of confession;
for what he has been seeking has been not the absolution, but
rather the end of the laborious nuisance of confessing. Thus,
while we sleep secure, everything is upset again. In the second
place, such penitents weary the confessor, stealing his time, and
standing in the way of other penitents.

[Sidenote: The Commandments a Guide to Confession]

We ought, therefore, to look briefly at the Commandments of God,
in which, if they are rightly understood, all sins are, without
doubt, contained.[12] And not even all of these are to be
considered, but the last two Commandments are to be excluded
entirely from confession. Confession should be brief, and should
be a confession chiefly of those sins which cause pain at the
time of confession, and, as they say, "move to confession." For
the sacrament of confession was instituted for the quieting, not
for the disturbing, of the conscience.

For example, as regards the Commandment, "Thou shalt not commit
adultery," let the penitent quickly say in what manner he has
given place to lust, either in act or word, or by consent, just
as though he were describing himself entirely, with all his limbs
and senses, in that Commandment. Why, then, should he uselessly
bring in the five senses, the mortal sins, and the rest of that
ocean of distinctions? So in the case of the Commandment, "Thou
shalt not kill." Let him quickly say by what kind of wrath he has
sinned, whether by hatred, slander or cursing, or by the act of
murder itself. And so with the rest; as I have tried to show in
my _Preceptorium_ and my writings on the Decalogue.[13]

Let it not disturb anyone that in the Decretals on Penance and in
the IV. Book of the Sentences[14] this matter is differently
treated. For they all are full of human inventions; and no
wonder! They have taken everything they say out of a certain
apocryphal and unlearned book called _De vera et falsa
poenitentia_,[15] which is widely circulated, and ascribed, by a
lying title, to St. Augustine.

TENTH

[Sidenote: Commandments of God and of Man]

In making confession diligence should be used to distinguish with
great care between sins committed against the Commandments of God
and si